1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for processing image data read from a document and input from an image source such as a scanner, a facsimile device, an electronic mail device and the like, thereby to display or print dada on a medium which differs in size from the document.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image-data processing apparatuses have been put to practical use which process image data read from a document and input from an image data source such as a scanner, a facsimile device, an electronic mail transmitter and the like, thereby to display or output the image dada on a medium such as a display screen or a hard copy sheet which differs in size from the document.
An apparatus of this type receives document-image data from the image data source including image reading means such as the scanner, facsimile device and electronic mail transmitter and image transmission means, processes the received data into data which represents an image reduced in size and changed in resolution or combines document-image data items into one image data, and outputs the processed image data. The image data the apparatus has output may be supplied to a printer, which produces a hard copy of the image. Alternatively, it may be supplied to a facsimile device, which transmits the image data to a destination facsimile device.
The image data is subjected to image-reducing or image-enlarging process before it is output on a medium which differs in size from the document from which it has been read. Two problems arise, however, when the document image is reduced or enlarged in its entirety, changing characters and spaces alike in size. First, if the image is reduced, relatively small characters, if any on the document, will be output in so small a size to be illegible. Second, if the image is enlarged, relatively large spaces, if any on the document, will be output very conspicuous in comparison with the characters.
In other words, when the size of the image of the document is reduced in its entirety, there will occur a case in which the characters in the document displayed or printed become very small so that the characters cannot be recognized. Further, when the image is enlarged and displayed or printed on a medium, the spaces appear more conspicuous than the enlarged characters.